Objective: Lurasidone is an antipsychotic drug that shows a relative lack of weight gain common to many antipsychotics. Aripiprazole and ziprasidone also show little weight gain and can reduce olanzapine-induced food intake and weight gain in animals, paralleling some clinical findings. We hypothesized that lurasidone would have similar actions.
Methods: Female Lister-hooded rats received i.p either 2x vehicle (saline), lurasidone (3mg/kg) and vehicle, olanzapine (1mg/kg) and vehicle, or olanzapine and lurasidone. Following drug administration food intake was measured for 60min. A further series of rats underwent a seven-day regime of once-daily administration of the above doses and free access to food and water. Weight gain over the course of the study was monitored.
Results: Olanzapine induced a significant increase in food intake while lurasidone showed no significant effect. Co-administration of lurasidone with olanzapine suppressed the increase in food intake. Repeated dosing showed an increase in body weight after seven days with olanzapine, and no significant effect observed with lurasidone, while repeated administration of lurasidone with olanzapine reduced the effect of olanzapine on the increase in body weight.
Conclusion: These findings support our hypotheses in that lurasidone, in addition to a lack of effect on acute food intake and short term weight gain, can reduce olanzapine-induced food intake and weight gain in rats. This indicates the drug to have an active anti-hyperphagic mechanism, rather than solely the absence of a drug-induced weight gain that is such a severe limitation of drugs such as olanzapine.